Journey to Year 33
This is my personal, very vulnerable healing story leading up to the age of 33, and it is shared with a disclaimer of emotional and physical abuse and suicide ideation that may be triggering to some.
Privilege Disclaimer: Despite the trauma faced throughout my years, I never feared for my safety growing up, always had food to eat, a roof over my head, and educational opportunities. As a Colombian-American born into a middle class family in the United States, I’ve faired far better than millions around the world and thus was better equipped to heal through the adversity that I detail in the story to come.
Introduction
In June of 2021, I had a plan to end my life. After months of debilitating pain, fatigue, and immobility (which followed several years of chronic pain), coupled with an unhealthy relationship, unhealed trauma, and a lack of community, I hadn’t just given up on trying, I had found a peaceful, convincing argument that said I would be better off if I embraced whatever comes after this life. The beautiful outcome of this story is not only did I choose to live, but today, now a year later as I write this, I live radically pain-free with a newfound sense of purpose to pass on what I’ve learned to help inspire even just one person to know they are not alone, that their pain is real, and that with guidance and love, there is hope for a new way of being. It starts with becoming aware.
I do not heal my clients through coaching. There is no one coming to save you, and the empowering truth is that you already have everything it takes to discover what you need. By tuning inward, learning about our behaviors and how circumstances affect our experience, understanding where we are putting our time and energy, and reconnecting with the natural world, you can create a new story. Through coaching, I aim to guide you through the process that I learned to heal my suffering, so that you can heal yourself too—be it from an injury, chronic pain or fatigue, anxiety, depression, or general lack of purpose, motivation, connection, or joy in your life. I’ll give you the tools that have helped me go from six years of limited mobility and managing daily chronic pain—to living a functional, relatively pain-free life. This might sound too good to be true, and admittedly if someone would have told me this in the early stages of my journey I may have written them off. But oh how I wish someone would have gifted me this insight… Only years later would I realize insight can only be discovered from within, but it is with guidance and direction from others that one can awaken to their uniquely personalized intuition. After countless videos, books, articles, podcasts, and resources I landed here; and I want to make this process easier for you so maybe you don’t have to suffer much longer.
The Foundation
Every experience shapes human reality. Our genes are an expression of one individual, a body’s need for nutrients is personalized, and what happens to us along life’s journey shapes the way we see and perceive the world. I am no different in this aspect, and with that understanding, my story is unique. After years of reflection, therapy, trauma healing, and ample patience, I have learned a lot about what makes me “Lex Amore,” and even with this truth, I am aware that my perception of myself continually changes day-to-day, and that perspective is also different from who I believe others perceive me as. Everyone has a story to tell, and this fascinates me—which is partly why I gravitated toward the coaching profession. This is the first time I’ve shared my personal journey so openly and vulnerably, and I hope this courage inspires you to do the same—be it in writing personally to yourself, sharing with a close group of friends and family, or boldly to the community of which you are a part.
Today at age 33, I have spondylolisthesis in my lower spine at L5-S1, multiple bulging discs, degenerative disc disease, and have torn two discs four times since 2015. The torn discs have healed, the rest remain. I had options for fusion surgery at various points in my journey but decided against it. I had injections of cortisone three times. I tried acupuncture, massage, physical therapy, counseling for chronic pain, chronic pain support groups, behavioral psychotherapy, craniosacral therapy—you name it. And overall, each helped me live a mostly manageable lifestyle. Mentally and emotionally, the physical pain dismantled my wellbeing, and I have suffered from depression and anxiety (which ultimately affected my ability to work, build friendships and romances, and join community). I taught myself how to accept living at a grade 6 pain (at a minimum), and how to wear a brave face until I broke at a grade 9 pain level. Eventually I had to take a disability leave from work—and during that time I was offered a different perspective, something I hadn't expected—a way through suffering and into a second chance at life.
But before we go there, let’s rewind further back to recognize how this concept of pain and suffering was not new to my story.
I am the daughter of Patricia Benedetti, a Colombian-born woman who at the age of 17 moved to a little town called Highland, Illinois in the United States. As a foreign exchange student, she was one of two brown people in a town of about 10,000 people from German and Swiss heritage. There she met my dad, Steve Hundsdorfer, a white man whose family had three prior generations born on U.S. soil. They were married at 21 and gave birth to my sister, Ashley, almost a decade later, and I followed her arrival three years later. My dad was hesitant to have children, and the pressure of society, expectations from both their families, and my mom’s innate desire to have a family persuaded him to give in to the trajectory of his life. Both are a result of their own experiences, too, which ultimately groups them into our collective similarity of being imperfect, flawed humans.
My mom was always driven to perform, to prove her worth through school and career-focused achievements. At age 11, her mother shaved her head following her dad’s threat of exceptional academic performance in her private school associated with the Catholic Church While her parents loved her, they pushed her as the eldest child to achieve more than they had, to overcome the mistakes they themselves had made—more expectations that their own parents had placed on them, generation after generation.
My dad’s parents were very stern and grew up in an era of scarcity. Also the oldest, at a young age he was expected to follow the grain—make money, support family, suppress all emotions. Creativity, curiosity, and joy were stripped away after high school, making it hard to connect with himself deep enough to know self-love and true relational connection.
My mom went to work very quickly after my sister was born, and my dad never stopped working throughout. Both to have some help and offer some purpose, when I was born my mom’s mother, who we call Mami Lucy, was invited to come stay with us in the states for a month. My mom’s tense and estranged relationship with her mother was overlooked, because she had the innate instinct to care for her; and ultimately it was the death of her dad, her mother’s husband, that sparked the invitation. He died before I was born and thus I never met him, but I have heard countless stories over the years about the grand love he offered to his wife and family, and the respect he garnered from his community, work, and my mom and her five siblings. Alvaro was Lucy’s world—so much more than even her children. And when he died of a heart attack at the age of 55, her world seemingly ended. So when Mami Lucy came to stay with us after my birth, I became her everything.
Rather than staying for four weeks, Mami Lucy stayed for over four years. Spanish was my first language, and my main caregiver was her. She was my person, my protector, and my radiant source of unconditional love.
My sister Ashley wasn’t treated the same. Her love came from Don, my dad’s father. After Don became a grandfather, everything about him had changed from when he was a working class parent. He offered love and acceptance for Ashley, and while he and my grandmother, Helen, lived a couple hours away by that time, they were a part of all her milestones growing up until the move my family made from Illinois.
Before my fifth birthday, my dad had been offered a job in Georgia. Mami Lucy flew back to Colombia right before the move, and I have a vague memory of screaming bloody murder at the airport, not understanding why my person was leaving. This moment marked the first crucial traumatic experience for me. No one explained why she left, and worse, I’d spend the next 26 years talking to her once a year and seeing her only five more times before her death with years separating each visit. At age 31, I would begin to unpack the feelings of abandonment, loss, and grief.
After Mami Lucy left for Colombia, I stopped speaking. My parents saw a counselor, and they advised them to switch to speaking to me in English. That transition would lock my native language behind a closed door until this day. Understandably, I struggled with speech issues; and once I went to elementary school, I began speech therapy, which lasted five years—effectively ridding my accent upon conscious annunciation. Spanish was discouraged from being spoken in my house from my dad’s discomfort, my mom’s family was never made to feel welcome, and after more than a decade of this oppression, my heritage was overridden.
Each year after the move, we would visit the Hundsdorfers for Thanksgiving, and there was always something off for me. I never felt truly connected, loved authentically, or accepted for who I am. And I saw it the same for my mom. We were like outsiders, and my mom was consistently judged and critiqued for her parenting style. Transparency and communication lacked at every angle, and there was always hiding—from finances and spending habits to mistakes and accidents. Shame and guilt were inherently infused in this environment—conversations about normal bodily functioning (like defecating) were certainly not discussed. And forget about sex education—that was left to the school district to teach abstinence only and hearsay from my peers who were getting unsafely and popularly intimate by the age of 14.
All of this is relevant as it helped shape the behaviors, instincts, and personality quirks that have made me “me.” Whether or not you’ve followed Sigmund Freud’s work or swatted away childhood experiences having an effect on an adult’s behavior, I do not believe there is any rational argument that says what happens to us in these early stages of development has no bearing on the rest of our lives. These are our formative years, and they shape our entire reality. For me, despite having a middle class upbringing in a half-white household, my privilege only got me so far as I was hungry for loving connection. That privilege did play a major influence on my ability to have a quality education, afford basic material resources, never worry about homelessness or malnutrition, and avoid a cycle of poverty. My mom marrying my dad, teaching me English and ridding my accent, and moving to a diverse community in Georgia essentially gave me a chance to avoid the backlash from society’s discrimination against Latin people. I didn’t have to face the same struggles my mom has to be taken seriously as a Colombian woman.
However, this was just the beginning of my personal suppression of emotional expression. My dad was also resentful of his life, and it was clear in the double persona he embodied. At home, we were surrounded by anger and disappointment. He would arrive miserable after work, do some yard chores or tinker in his basement workshop, and then watch television until my mom rushed home from work hours later where he’d complain about being hungry. She’d grab my sister and I, take us to the fast food restaurants of our choosing, and return home to be criticized again. They slept in separate bedrooms for as far as I can remember, knowing only a couple times where they slept in the same bed and my mom was literally kicked and kicked out after snoring. They decided to stay together till I was out of the house, and ultimately that ended up creating a far worse suffering than had they gotten divorced in my early years.
For my dad, we were never good enough. A ‘B’ was never as good as an ‘A’, a score of 97 was never as good as a 100. From grades to projects to chores to sports, everything was met with “This could have been better if…” When he was around, he was vocally angry, aggressive, and emotionally abusive. He would say awfully mean things to all of us, and no one else knew, because to those outside our immediate family, he was funny, charming, and even helpful. Knowing what I know now, he did love us, and this behavior was an attempt to make us stronger. Misguided, yes—but he did the best he could with the tools he had available.
One day I came home from swim practice to find my room completely destroyed: the comforter ripped in half, ceramic figurines from my grandmother and mom broken, everything in my room was torn apart from some sort of angry rage. I saw it, cried, and asked what happened, and he replied with how he was tired of me not cleaning my room (I didn’t make my bed that day). When I confronted him 18 years later with compassion and wanting to understand what was really going on with him then, he called me a liar and said I made the whole thing up. And while clearly his own inability to process emotional distress is relevant, what I remember is changing my entire room the next week to be decorated in his favorite sports team’s colors and swag: Clemson bed sheets and curtains, blue walls, tiger paws everywhere—like a college football store had vomited in every direction—all to appease him and seek acceptance.
Ultimately, my dad gave up early on with the rules and trying to enforce any behavior and eventually checked out as soon as he could, traveling on Friday afternoons to the lake, missing swim competitions, and leaving all the parenting to my mom. My only time with him would be the angry evenings after work where the rage radiated through the walls, at the lake with a Scotch in his hand, and the times I would go to football games to try and win his attention. Those times at the lake, I remember vividly the nights where my skin hurt to touch, and I cried in agony. Blankets and clothes, even the gentle breeze would leave me in agony, and there was never any explanation from doctors so it went ignored from my parents, my mom trying to have compassion, but not knowing what to do. Eventually it stopped at some point in middle school, perhaps because I had another outlet of spending times with friends away from my family.
Under my mom’s supervision, she had three fundamental lessons she instilled in my sister and I. First, she had one prime rule: “You can do anything you want so long as you get good grades.” That meant getting at least a B in school led to no curfew and essentially having the freedom to do as we pleased. This came with two large side effects. On one end, I never wanted to lose that trust so I didn’t get into trouble. I saw my friends being grounded and getting into things that would compromise my freedom so I stayed clean and/or eventually learned how to lie. But I maintained my grades, doing just enough to get by until high school before I started putting more effort into academics (more on that later). The unfortunate side effect on that approach was I ultimately defined my worth by my ability to perform. If I got good grades, it meant I was worthy.
The second concept my mom instilled in my sister and I was the value of each other. She’d often say how all we have is each other—everyone else would die, including her and my dad, and no one could be trusted like we can trust each other. Ashley was engrained to be my person, and I hers.
And the third was the idea that we could do anything we set our minds on. Despite her flaws and lack of belief in being able to do this herself, she told us time and time again we create our own future. This helped break down the concepts of what society wanted, what teachers proposed, what other kids believed. It helped infuse the lessons I had been taught through school on how to use critical thinking to begin having a practice of questioning what others thought to be true. For example, the idea of getting married and having kids wasn’t an expectation (despite knowing my mom has always very much wanted grandchildren). Likewise, when I came home at age 12 after Sunday School from church and said I didn’t want to go anymore or be confirmed as a Catholic, because “it felt like a cult," my mom said I didn’t have to go anymore. She gave us a sense of autonomy and agency.
This was the backdrop of my sister and my upbringing. By the time I was 8-years-old, my sister at age 11 began to have mental health issues after experiencing her own trauma that I’ll leave out here to protect her story. Soon I would be doing sweeps of her room after school as she slept having missed school herself due to crippling depression. My mom was so concerned and worried about Ashley taking her own life, and my dad was either not around or was to be feared when he was around. He once told me that it’s good he doesn’t have to worry about me, and I remember from then on I knew no one was actually looking out for me. I had no one to lean on since my sister was my person, and she was threatening her own life, my mom and I had a very tenuous relationship, my dad was a thorny dagger of disappointment, and I had been estranged from the person who was my person when I was growing up. Making friendships was challenging, as I didn’t really trust others—after all, they weren’t my sister. After I went through the popularity seeking phases in middle school and transitioned into an angry emo kid in high school, I wholeheartedly believed that to survive I had to be ruthless with myself and follow the light that guides me, doing whatever it took to become the person I wanted to become.
There are dozens more details that add even more flavor to the story, and while they are all relevant to me and my journey, for our sake here let’s continue onward and understand that this all fed to my lack of feeling protected, worthy, enough, loved, seen, and accepted.
The Escape and New Discoveries
In high school, I was gifted with one teacher that changed the course of my life: Ms. Heather Held. She was my 9th-grade literature teacher, and she saw that I had a knack for writing. She encouraged me, and that feeling of being seen allowed me to question whether there may be some value in investing more of my time and energy into school. I went from a barely-B student to straight A’s, eventually doing well enough to have enough credits to transition my senior year into a first-year college experience, with one class remaining at the high school where I served as Editor in Chief of the school yearbook.
As soon as I could drive at age 16, I spent every moment I could away from my parent’s house, including spending a summer where I mostly lived at a house rented by people a few years older than me. Outside of school, competitive swimming was my outlet, and in the next two years I would have two shoulder surgeries that would eventually end my swimming career. The opioid drugs that were offered made me feel like garbage, and I hated taking them. At this point in my journey, things could have taken a completely different direction, especially as I was exposed to spending most of my time in a rock band’s house of early-twenty-somethings with an endless prescription of pain medicine. I stayed away from other drugs even though they were available, coming back to the fear of losing that trust and freedom. But I also made a lot of poor decisions, drank often, and hung out in college towns early on. You could say I lived my college years while still in high school, which actually ended up serving me well, because by the time I was able to leave the house after high school, I didn’t care much to party. I had high ambitions and goals to make something of myself.
For many years I had no one I felt was looking out for me so it was all up to me to make something of my life. That determination, critical self-judgment, and hardcore individual mindset pushed me to follow my instincts without ever looking back. It also kept me from truly letting anyone else in.
Spending time with the recent graduates from my high school was better than my peers. I started hanging with this one guy that was known by most as the biggest asshole in his senior class. And he truly was. Demeaning to girls, rude, and absurdly over-confident. He was a real-life Johnny Bravo, for any that remember the (quite terrible) Cartoon Network sitcom. I’ll refer to him as “Johnny” from here.
I didn’t “put out” like the other girls, and I think that made him want me more. I talked to him and listened, and there were aspects of him that were sweet… sometimes. But really hanging with him gave me an opportunity to be around his roommate, “Paul,” who I had a secret crush on for months. Eventually Johnny wanted more from me, a kiss here and there, sleeping next to me at the end of parties. I felt a little pressured into it but didn’t want to make a fuss about anything. Then he started pressuring me with situations I was uncomfortable with, followed by physical abuse. But I was so young and naive. I felt like it was my fault that I had put myself alone in a situation with him so many times, continuing to show up, stay as everyone dispersed, and allow the physical aggression to happen.
One day, a friend and I were talking at a party when Paul came in and said he had just broken up with his girlfriend. My heart burst into flames. We talked about it, had a drink, and then our friend left the room. With that liquid courage I blurted out, “I’ve had a crush on you for 10 months. You can’t tell me this doesn’t feel right.” He looked dumb-founded. I smiled and left the room to go talk to Johnny.
Johnny and I went upstairs, and I told him I wanted to end things. The situation turned sour fast. He asked if there was someone else. I said yes. He asked if it was Paul. I said yes. Then he began to get angry. I started to slowly back away, and he lunged for me. I tried to pull back, but he slammed my head into the bed-frame, held me down, mumbled things I couldn’t understand, and cried. I stopped trying to resist and laid there for what felt like hours until he calmed. I slowly and quietly got out from under his grip and bolted for the door, running down the hall, downstairs, and out into the garage.
Paul followed me. He asked if Johnny knew I liked him, and I said yes. He apologized and said he had to fix things with his roommate. He turned to walk away, jogged back, and kissed me. We were together for the next decade. And yes, it wasn’t all roses and bliss. Even in the beginning, I remember Paul wanted us to “practice being good at relationships and sex.” We were both virgins but were curious about exploring, and well, I was just head over heels for him so I let him think whatever he wanted. Eventually he fell in love with me as much as I loved him, and we would go through so much together, shaping our young adult lives and bonding us forever.
Paul was my first love. He was my best friend, my adventure buddy, my confidant. And while I never fully leaned on him and always kept him outside the armor protecting my heart, I loved him with all that I knew how. About a year into our relationship, I found 5-week-old Bear at a flea market. Bear was a little miniature pinscher-chihuahua mix who became my side-kick for the next 11 years. He went everywhere with me—including in my pocket to a Tom Petty concert with Paul. From my college courses as a senior in high school to work at the tanning bed after, Bear was with me. We’d go out to Athens on the weekends to visit Paul, making plans for the day we’d finally leave the Hundsdorfer house.
In the last few months before high school graduation, I saw the movie Across the Universe in theaters and was introduced to a new perspective that would forever change my life. I saw and felt love in a new way, which ultimately invited me to explore The Beatles closer, finding my way to cannabis and ultimately psychedelics. An unraveling of what I knew to be true was upon me, and I had found a new path to explore in my mind. Paul and I experimented, learning more about ourselves and each other and opening every new pathway to love.
As soon as high school graduation came and went, Bear and I moved to a studio apartment in Midtown Atlanta, attending undergrad at Georgia State University, and Paul wasn’t far behind in joining us. With a first year down already, I was able to jump into my journalism major. The intrigue of psychedelics and mind expansion led me to study a minor in psychology to better understand how the brain worked, and another in film. Mostly self-taught, I took my studies seriously and filled the gap in resources offered by teachers by immersing myself in going beyond the regurgitation of facts as I had experienced in primary school.
I was 19, living in the studio, and I got pregnant. Even several weeks in I was challenged with denial. Finally when a test was taken and confirmed after intense morning sickness and work suffering (I was then working in the kennel at an animal hospital), Paul and I both agreed we didn’t want to move ahead with having a child. We were so young, not financially stable, and had dreams for our lives. I had never envisioned growing children in this body, feeling that rather than procreating, I would be better capable of helping the collective species thrive. Referred to as Inclusive Fitness, I believe my biology was not programmed to spawn and instead altruistically recognize there are hundreds of thousands of children that could have a better life if I adopted one of them when I would have the proper resources and stability to support them.
At the time of the procedure, the ultrasound technician also informed me that I had a large cyst growing on my ovary. A few months later after it grew to the size of a softball, I would have it removed laparoscopically. Then a year later I would have another cyst grow on a fallopian tube that would also need to be removed. For years during this period of time and into my early twenties, I suffered from bouts of rage, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and migraines. And all throughout and since, my menstrual cycle has been wrought with heavy bleeding, intense cramping, extreme fatigue, and an energy plummet that only in recent years has been a source of concern for dramatic thoughts of suicide.
Between the two cyst removals I had quit the animal hospital, because I didn’t like the way they were treating the animals, and joined a woman who was planning to open a dog daycare in downtown Atlanta. A week before the grand opening, Carrie fired everyone except me. For the next four months I would serve as her only employee, working the front desk and the back for the dozens of dogs that would come through and board. Her and I spent a lot of time together, and she was the first woman to ever demonstrate attraction toward me.
About 24 years my senior, I looked to her as a mentor with operating a business. I would go to class, and then Bear and I would spend most of our time at the facility. Paul wasn’t ever intimidated by Carrie as far as he expressed to me, stating that as a woman he felt confident in himself and our relationship. She would wine and dine me, taking me to the fanciest restaurants around town. It started with innocent kissing and close intimacy, and I was curious. It was all confusing and admittedly I was afraid of losing my job, or worse. I knew that she had some mental health issues as she had opened up about her coming home one day a couple years back to where her partner had taken her life with a shotgun on their back porch, and in her grief, Carrie dropped to her knees to bathe in her blood. Gruesome for sure, and as a 19-year-old, I was concerned for her wellbeing. I talked about leaving the job a couple of times and she threatened to take her own life if I did. From there some memories are a blur as our relationship grew quite emotionally, mentally, and physically abusive as she tried to control me. The worst was probably noted as I got out of her moving car along North Avenue one night after she assaulted me when I showed disapproval from her taking one of the dogs that had been boarding home with her. I didn’t tell Paul all the details, because I was scared. I thought he would be angry at me or approach her and that she may react and do something rash. Eventually it became too much, and I told him I didn’t feel safe. He went with me to return my keys, and I never saw or spoke to her again.
Around this time I experienced the first painful back episode. I remember laying in the bathroom for three days unable to move, but I didn’t tell Paul or anyone else for that matter, because I thought it wasn’t real. I didn’t want to make something out of nothing, and then that Monday the pain had gone away, and I wouldn’t think about it again for years—five to be exact when it signaled some discomfort on a winter trip to Colorado. Again at that time I would ignore it until the week I returned home, was planting some trees, and had the big vertebra slip that changed everything.
In the years that followed back in my early twenties, my trauma was shoved down so far that I began to have angry outbursts and frequent panic attacks. I had no outlet or knowledge of how to process my emotions, and practically everything triggered me. Paul and I began to fight often, and while there was deep love, the romance had dwindled. We had been through so much over the years and not quite recovered fully. But we were familiar with each other. We were family. So we stayed together, because it still felt right. Also in the process of getting pregnant, invoking a miscarriage, and then having an abortion, I was terrified of sex and would be for several years to come.
One year, Paul and I journeyed to San Francisco for spring break, and I was further exposed to a whole different way of living and perceiving the world. The city of love brought hope and potential, and once I graduated from Georgia State, I went to visit on my own for a week. Three days in I had landed an apartment, came home early, and declared to my boyfriend and family that Bear and I were moving at the end of the month. Paul and I broke up, agreeing that it was best for us to learn who we are as individuals—and like we had always said, if it was meant to be we would always find each other again. It was difficult not to talk to him for four months before he dropped in for the holidays. Reuniting with him, it all still felt the same for me. I still loved him, and I still didn’t know who I was without him. He felt differently and moved five months later. From there, we’d be in a weird limbo for two more years before he found someone who would fully commit.
In the beginning at San Francisco, I picked up a couple jobs to make ends meet before I landed a full-time PR role. Walking into 14 different agencies introducing myself and asking for consideration, I was offered a position with one that I’d learn and grow with for six months before the next big transition in my life. After being assigned a law firm as a client, I was told they represented a thing called fracking. It was then that I learned about climate change and the global destruction of our planet. I left that job citing moral conflicts, found another position at a full-service PR agency focused on sustainability, and consumed every piece of knowledge I could to understand the gravity of the wicked challenges at play.
For months I was living and breathing the science behind climate change and this put further strain on Paul and my relationship. I had nothing to talk about except the impact and need for solutions. He started honing his craft as a cocktail connoisseur and bar manager, and I saw no purpose in those luxuries anymore given that the planet seemed to be collapsing before my very eyes.
Cystic acne riddled my face, dismantling my attachment to my physical body and association with being pretty. Anxiety crippled my ability to have friendships and created even more distance between Paul and I. I couldn’t learn enough and was growing more and more agitated and hopeless about the reality and how after decades of scientific understanding of global warming and habitat destruction, not enough was being done. I began learning about the toxic chemicals that surround us, the air and water pollution, and the carbon excreted into the air from just about every process so many humans were creating. I learned about profit over people, social inequities, and the selfish perspectives and limited foresights of those who denied the science, at one point even getting into a loud, verbal and very public argument with my dad over whether climate change was real and accelerated by human behavior.
All along this journey, I sought to personalize my experience and express myself. I colored my hair just about every color in the rainbow spectrum between the ages of 14-26. I started getting tattoos and using clothing to change the way I looked on the outside to reflect the changes that were happening on the inside. One day in my late twenties I would go as far as changing my full name so that my identity would be one that matched my values and intention: to live a life of love. But this all came with a myriad of wipeouts, challenges, successes, and beautiful moments that shaped me into who I was becoming, destined to always change from there on out.
Once Paul and I broke up, I had just turned 25. Within a month I returned to the lessons from Martin Luther King, Jr., an active voice in my childhood growing up in Georgia, but distorted in the teachings from my public school education. I read his books, listened to his talks, and was led to Gandhi and Buddhism, then Hinduism, and then with the leftover wisdom from George Harrison, discovered the Krishnas, meditation, and a deeper sense of spiritual exploration. This practice helped prepare me for the inevitable slippage of my vertebra, taking away my physical mobility and turning life completely inward. It also helped me rebuild the relationship I had with my mom, who after divorcing my dad years before was finally prioritizing her own health and wellbeing. To this day, I celebrate my mom despite her flaws knowing that she too has always done the best she could given the tools she has had available to her, and always come from a place of love. This deeper connection to a spiritual life also helped me renew a connection with my sister, who would be on her own healing journey as well.
Breaking Down, Building Up, and Making Choices
In the depths of my climate grief, I discovered biomimicry, which is defined as the conscious emulation of life’s genius. Essentially it means that by learning how other organisms alive today function, we can mimic these strategies to solve similar challenges in a way that create conditions conducive to life. It means that the solutions to all these wicked challenges can be found by looking to the natural world. Embedded in this design framework and problem solving tool was also a philosophical understanding that because we are animals, we are nature, and because we are nature, we are enough. Arriving with this wisdom allowed me to come home, to find peace and acceptance in the moment. The practice is not about returning to a time before the Industrial Revolution, it’s about looking at the context that we’re given at any moment and asking: “What would nature do here?” or “What wouldn’t nature do here?” and go from there. Once I learned about this practice, I had hope.
After I began the Masters program in biomimicry at Arizona State University, I injured my back. I was in denial for some time, thinking it would all get better within a couple of weeks. After the bedrest had passed, I had to learn how to walk again in a way that was stable and conducive to healing. It wasn’t until my grandfather had passed away a few weeks later that I told my family about the injury, because I couldn’t make it to the funeral. Still I thought that after another month, it would be better. And then it was three months, and then six. At that point I had been working from home full time, doing well in school, and serving as a teaching assistant for multiple courses—all while spending the majority of my days laying on my back. From sunup till sleep, I was online with Bear by my side.
During this time I also felt challenged from an emotionally abusive relationship with my then best friend and roommate. Riddled by her own childhood trauma, she had moved from Georgia to live across the hall from me. But after a couple years it turned toxic. Months into being stuck at home from my back injury, I had to make the hard decision to ask her to move out to preserve our friendship. She hasn’t spoken to me since despite my attempts to reach out.
Eventually I moved to Portland. I sought community in my lonely despair. It had been about 9 months of being alone in my offline life, and I thought I would find acceptance in a city that championed itself for being weird. After three months of complete isolation in the worst winter the region had seen in years, and after a year of isolation and limited mobility, hearing from two surgeons that wanted to fuse my spine for a 50% chance of pain reduction, I was feeling quite hopeless.
I saw dozens of doctors and specialists. So many people that had sympathy for my situation but all with the same message: live to learn with the pain. The symptoms all pointed to imperfections on the scans, disc bulge here in one direction, torn disc there in the opposite direction. After the second surgeon’s opinion of spinal fusion that month, and being the third person to tell me my spine looks like an 80-year-old’s, I spoke with a physiologist to see if there were any other options. He said again to learn to live with the pain, but instead of going through physical therapy in healthcare, find a personal trainer that has worked with people with back injuries to try and learn how to live a more functional life.
It was then that I found a trainer that encouraged a whole body fitness approach, including nutrition and exercise. When I walked into “Allen’s” studio, I felt broken, alone, and out of options. The surgery had been scheduled for August, giving me four months to try this last approach, along with acupuncture, private therapy, and joining a chronic pain support group. Allen heard my story, and looked me straight in the eyes and said with confidence, “Your body wants to heal, and I’m going to help you get through this.” I immediately broke down into tears and decided to believe him.
Even a few weeks into working together, I didn’t say much during our sessions. Every movement took conscious intention and full awareness. It was my one visit outside the house, minus walking my cart to the grocery store, taking Bear to the nearby park, and traveling to other healing modalities. Allen taught me about nutrition, looked at my habits, and we learned I had been consuming an extremely low level of protein on my vegan diet, which was remedied through protein powder and food journaling.
One Sunday, he texted me and asked if I was free for coffee. I had no excuse. It was early enough that I could still walk (by 3pm on the good days days, I would need to lay down for the rest of the day because the pain would become too intolerable), and so I said yes. I met him a couple blocks from my home, and we had our first conversation that went beyond the personal training sessions. I liked the values that Allen spoke of for his own life, and I talked about Bear, and how he was my best (and only) friend. In pure innocence, I asked if he wanted to meet him. We walked to my house, I introduced them, and before leaving, Allen turned to me and asked me if I wanted a hug. Now, while I had Bear giving me more love and purpose than I ever had from any other human relationship, I didn’t realize how lonely I really was and how the lack of human contact had affected my wellbeing.
I remember feeling the discomfort when Allen wrapped his arms around me. Something felt off and a little wrong, but I was timid and went along as he demonstrated command over the situation. He said we should lay on the couch, and I agreed. We ended up laying there together for hours, talking some but mostly just enjoying the embrace of each other. Eventually I released the tension gripping my body, and later realized why I had leaned into his hold: it felt nice for the first time in years to be comforted.
I never assumed anything would happen beyond that embrace. While I had experienced some attraction for him, it was more about the comfort and support he offered. His confident strength and the care he took to his body was a new kind of energy I hadn’t ever been around. But he also was totally not “my type” in that he was into motorcycles, ate meat, and believed he “paid his sustainability dues and wanted to just live his life.” Having been almost twice my age, serving as my personal trainer, and most importantly, the very fact that he was married, I never thought we had anything more than a platonic relationship. And on the couch that day he talked about how unhappy he was with his partner, how his marriage was practically over, and how it just felt nice to share physical touch.
And then the line was crossed. Now, I’ll say there are a series of events that obliterated my conscious, moral, and ethical values. Almost 100 therapy sessions later, I’m still working through the guilt and shame of those years of adultery. I promise I’m harder on myself than anyone else’s judgment could serve up. But somewhere along the way, I fell for Allen. It started with a year of complete secrecy, not even telling my sister, who returned to being my forever person and best friend. I was living two lives, and it was tearing me apart.
A week before I was scheduled to have the spinal fusion surgery, I had built up enough physical strength and managed the pain well enough to take on a hike that was 10 miles long up a 2,500-foot elevation. When I got to the top overlooking the Columbia River Gorge, I thought if I can do this, I don’t need to have surgery. And so I canceled the fusion and maintained the rehabilitation practices as a way of living. I also stopped working with Allen on a professional level for obvious reasons.
Two weeks later, Bear had a back injury himself that destined him to an excruciatingly painful life and partial paralysis. I made the most difficult decision to put him down, and after 11 years, my side kick wasn’t there anymore. I retreated to a treehouse off the grid to recreate my new, individual path forward, and a couple days in I decided the pain was too much to handle alone, and I retreated into Allen’s arms. Still a secret, after months of him convincing me that he’d protect me and that I was safe with him, I gave in and believed him. Eight months later we would travel to Hawai’i together to spend a month, something I could have never done when Bear was alive. It would be another 10 months after that before he was divorced, and 15 months before the secret was exposed.
During the years of being a secret, I struggled with various physical ailments from plantar fasciitis to diverticulitis to pre-cancerous cell growth. I re-tore a disc in my back, lived a daily life of pain, and criticized myself for breaking my moral code for continuing on in the affair. The physical experiences are relevant as while they may not be directly caused by the emotional pain, there’s no doubt in my mind that they were greatly exacerbated by it.
The day my relationship with Allen went public was a week after I had moved in with him, returning from another excursion to Hawai’i, that time for just over three months in 2019. I knew I wanted to live on Maui and had no desire to return to Portland. But I returned for him, agreeing to try living part time on his boat on the Columbia River and the winters and fall seasons on Maui. At about midnight on May 16 that year, I received a call from the emergency room saying Allen had been in a motorcycle accident. I left immediately and met two of his friends in the waiting room, whom I had heard so much about but had only learned of me in theory and to this day, no one was told the level of truth I’ve shared thus far.
That night I moved into the hospital where Allen and I would live for about a month, only to leave a handful of times to speak with lawyers and take care of business. I’m grateful for my mom who had moved to the area a year before and brought me food and clean clothes. I found an ADA-accessible apartment close to the hospital, purchased the necessary equipment, and convinced the doctors to release him under my care in lieu of going to a VA assisted care facility, where I knew he would never truly heal and be himself again. With one working limb, Allen was able to leave if he showed he could lift himself from the bed into the wheelchair with assistance.
For six months, I was a full-time caregiver. I never stopped working at my agency job and managed to maintain my physical progress that had been achieved through my time of rehabilitation working with Allen. As soon as November came and Allen had successfully moved from wheelchair to walker to crutches to canes, we made the voyage back to Maui where I had every intention of moving there full-time, and ultimately never returned to Portland. Allen wasn’t completely sold yet, but by that time he was eager to get out of the city before the winter fully arrived. During this transition, I also went from supporting the sustainability mission through my work at the PR agency to joining the mission directly, going in-house to a non-profit organization called the Biomimicry Institute where I would serve as Communications Director. The organization’s mission is to accelerate the adoption of nature-inspired design in education and application and fulfills this by supporting youth educators, up-and-coming nature-inspired startups, and making biology’s strategies open access and available to all through the AskNature.org database. Months later from the physical and career moves, the novel Coronavirus swept the globe, sending us all into quarantine and isolation.
As one can imagine, the damage to Allen’s body took more than a physical toll. Unbeknownst to me before the accident, he already had demonstrated manipulative tactics, gaslighting, and emotional abuse, but I was enamored and wanted to see only the good. So much had been risked for us to be together, the last thing I wanted to do was doubt my story or listen to that little instinctual voice deep inside questioning all of it. I loved him more than I had ever loved anyone before. So much that it hurt. Looking back I realize that it hurt way more than it should have. The accident only made things worse, and the last thing I would ever do was leave him.
The first time I thought about going below the water’s surface and not coming back up was in April 2020. I just didn’t know if it mattered anymore that I was here. I was so unhappy and every time I talked to Allen he found some incredible way to turn everything around on me that I ended up feeling crazy, alone, and lost. Yet still I was committed to serving him and offering unconditional love and acceptance, recognizing his pain was speaking and he had been through so much. After over a year of spending every waking minute with another human, minus the occasional 30-minutes here and there to run an errand, attachment, fear, and a responsibility to another’s wellbeing became deeply ingrained and instinctually bound.
In August of 2020, Allen felt strong enough to travel by himself back to Portland and visit with his friends. It was an agreement we had made as I voiced strongly that I wanted to live on the island full time. He set no return date, saying it may be a month before he would return. After one week of being away from him, I felt I could finally breathe. I felt I was free. And that feeling was not something I could turn away from. I decided to end our relationship, and while it may seem rash on the surface, in reality I had been questioning it long before the accident happened but never had the courage to step away.
At first there was negotiation, pleading, and then I requested time of no contact—to step away fully and have room to breathe. A month later I was in urgent care for a knee injury that I had ignored for weeks and ultimately put me on crutches followed by physical therapy. While I began riding my bicycle incessantly every day after the breakup, and the patella experienced a repetitive stress injury, the lack of listening to the pain or questioning its alarms turned it from a signal calling for rest to enough damage to force a rest.
In October, Allen returned to the island, and I tried to maintain my distance, feeling stronger and more confident that the decision was right, but of course questioning the same truth. In November, I participated in a 4-day off-the-grid retreat designed for women empowerment and connection, and it changed everything again for me. I opened up to my fears, faced inner trauma from childhood for the first time, and shared the vulnerable experience of Allen. Through the practices and inner exploration guided by the teachers, as well as genuine trust building with this group of powerful women, I felt like I had been given permission to be loved, and ultimately that helped me learn to love myself. I was on a new pathway to healing, but against my better judgment, I agreed to have Allen pick me up from the retreat. We spent the next several hours talking, stopping along the long drive home from Hana. He said all the right things I wanted to hear about how he had also been learning and growing. That time initiated a new chapter of emotional distress and abuse that would last another seven months before I made another challenging and heart-wrenching attempt to cut him out of my life. Each time I would try and practice self-love and grow safety and belonging within myself or be bold enough to let others in, he would remind me how I’d never be happy in a world without him.
By the end of December 2020, I had been building a sisterhood and community that was initiated from the retreat. I fell in love with freediving and was spending my weekends out in the ocean. My body was feeling stronger than ever, and I was on a new path to wellness. Then I wiped out on my scooter, narrowly avoiding a car that had crossed into my lane and slid across gravel just blocks from my apartment. After the road rash healed, I tried to get right back into where I had been before the wipeout. All up through this time, I didn't have any communication with what my body was saying. I questioned all the sensations, especially pain. I never wanted to make a big deal out of nothing and burden others so—if I could walk and breathe, it was manageable. Until it wasn't. I treated my body like a car that routinely went to the mechanic. Very different from today as I see her as a beautiful, intelligent organic being all capable of functioning with resilience and wisdom.
In March 2021, I finally went in to get a new MRI after the pain left me incapable of getting past my driveway. The new physiatrist pointed to spinal fusion again, noting the new tear on my disc had been quite large and that I’m at continual risk for re-injury with the spondylolisthesis. I started from the beginning again: bed rest and then slow reintegration of physical therapy. But even into June I was still suffering, and the chronic pain and fatigue made it nearly impossible to get out of bed. I was struggling to show up effectively for work, and while I never missed a deadline or let something slip, it was the only thing I had energy for and eventually when my boss asked me to leave my camera off for internal meetings, because the staff was starting to lose confidence in my ability to perform, I knew it was time to step away.
The first few weeks of disability leave crumbled the walls around me. I saw my reality truly for what it was without the distraction of work. I lost hope. For years I had been told no one would ever love me like he did, and no one would ever understand my pain or accept the limitations from my back. I felt broken and unlovable all over again. I was tired of fighting. I was ready to celebrate the amazing life I was already so grateful to have experienced and leave in peace knowing I had achieved my mission to be love. I knew ending my life would destroy my mom and my sister, but the pain was so brutal that I didn’t see it as giving up. I saw it as liberation from suffering. They would have had to understand. But there was always a voice deep down inside saying maybe—just maybe—this isn’t the only way to end suffering. Maybe body had something to say that I wasn’t listening to or capable of hearing yet. That “maybe” was enough to get me through several weeks until I felt so depleted, the distant reality of living in a more functional body was out of sight.
The day that I planned to exit this physical reality and rejoin my place with the collective energy whole, my idea of God/Universe/Brahman/Spirit or whatever you want to call it, Allen showed up again unannounced, but this time he saved me for had he not come over, I wouldn’t be here today. He convinced me to get out of bed and join him in a pool, to get some ease from the pain by floating without the burden of gravity. In divine timing, I met a woman there who claimed to be a healer. Having not an ounce of knowing anything about me or where I was physically, she asked if she could practice a water therapy technique she had learned.
From there she cradled me like a baby, gave me a safe place to release, and I let go, cried, and my body eased. I told her how tired I was, that I was ready to release body from this state. She said, “Honey, your soul is tired.” And while I didn’t fully understand it at the time, those words spoke to me on a deep level, and in that moment the “maybe” reappeared: maybe death isn't the only way to free myself from suffering. Maybe there was another way. And so I returned home, and the next morning in meditation I saw two paths: commit the remaining couple years of my life to an emotionally abusive partner (who I truly loved and was clouded by), destined to end in suicide from crippling pain and depression; or: take the uncertain decision to end all contact from that person, explore the relationship between my body and trauma, put in the time and energy to heal body, and live another day seemingly alone. Courage set me free, and it saved my life.
During those six weeks of disability leave, I was able to commit the time and energy needed to heal the acute injury from my back, as well as face the underlying trauma that had shackled me to periods of depression and anxiety for years. I decided I would need to separate myself completely from Allen, clear his vibration from my space, if anything just to see if maybe he was in fact getting in the way of me seeing another path. He was my family, my best friend, and it was a gut-wrenching, heart-breaking notion to think that he couldn’t be in my life—especially after everything we had gone through. But the decision had to be made, because my life was at risk, and it felt like the last option. I can now affirm it was the best and only decision I could have made, and I’m proud of every step I’ve taken since.
For many months I worked through the same emotional reprocessing techniques I offer in coaching. I thought about Allen every day, and it took a very long time to cleanse my brain from not only the thoughts that had caused damage from my time with him, but also from my dad. I heard that oftentimes in relationships, we seek the unmet needs we didn’t receive from our caregivers as children. I began to wonder if it was possible to attract every kind of obstacle or energy block from the past, being given time and time again a chance to resolve the wound, or on the contrary, feed a positively stimulating nutrient. I believe I attracted Allen to learn what I needed to learn, love in a truly unconditional and selfless way, and then decide to finally figure out who I am without the influence of anyone else. With every decision I made with him, I would do it all again if it meant I could be who I am today.
Similarly, for years, I've still struggled with the loss of Bear. He was not just a dog, he was the truest family I’ve ever known. I’ve mourned the loss of my grandmother, Mami Lucy, who passed without me ever being able to communicate how much I loved her, learn from her, hear her stories, or share who I have been. I’ve grieved over the missing piece of a protective father, one who I could feel safe with and receive unconditional love.
These are some of the heavier things I’ve carried over the years. Most recently, my reproductive system and cycle have been off-kilter, producing some more present health challenges. Truth be told, it’s all been really expensive and exhausting. I’ve never done work for the money and always lived in means that barely kept me afloat, but the situation makes it exactly where I choose to be at this moment to learn and grow at this stage in my life. I carry significant student loan debt, have medical bills, and basically live paycheck to paycheck. While this is limiting, I’m still incredibly grateful for my good fortune. My life at a baseline is what I could have only dreamed of years ago. I worked every step of the way to get here, but also recognize I had a platform from the beginning to help, with thanks to my mom for moving to this country and marrying my dad.
Today I meditate, journal, do breath-work, and yoga movement every day without falter. I walk, listen to wisdom shared through inspiring people like Jay Shetty and the cohort of humans he has had on his podcast “On Purpose,” read self-help books, and consume media that are nutritious for my growth. I am not easily upset, hormonal mood swings aside. I make an effort to move often, spend time in nature, and am continuing to slowly build a community of beautiful souls here on island. I do not try to control my emotions as much as be aware of them, and sometimes I get frustrated and angry. I’m human, and it’s natural.
I have seen many things in our nation and even through my sustainability-driven working community that both disappoints me and enrages me at the same time. The state of our governments, schools, supply chains and distributions, values of material possessions, and general lack of respect for the sanctity of all life—the natural world, the organisms that we share this planet with, our fellow species and their beautiful harmless differences, and the rights of an individual to write their story—all can be too much to carry. From social injustice to cycles of poverty and water distribution to clean air acts, I still struggle with many moments of despair, because I care. But rather than being paralyzed by hopelessness, fear, fatigue, guilt, sadness, or dissolution, or destructive and enraged by anger, I accept my role as a unique, imperfect animal with a role to play—most easily achieved in a calm state. I process the emotions in healthy ways, practice methods of self-soothing and inner safety. I learn more about my influence each day, recognize my mistakes and learn from them, choose one thing to do, and try to ask what is the wisest and most compassionate, most loving thing I can do here in this moment—for me and for anyone else that the decision affects.
I am continuing to learn how to open and trust others, not fearing that they can take away my feeling of belonging and challenge my sense of self. Learning to spot gaslighting and manipulative behaviors early on, I am better equipped to avoid other people’s attempts at mental and emotional abuse tactics. In daily practices of awareness, I continue to learn to let go of self-judgment and criticism, unrealistic expectations, unresolved guilt and shame, and pressures exerted to attain perfection. Rather than fearing or trying to fix any pain that arises, I invite compassion, patience, and listening. My priorities are focused on healthy habits, surrounding myself with people that support my growth, and dedicating my energy to service. As I struggle with imposter syndrome, I show up daily for myself in looking at how I can better align what I say I believe to match my actions and behaviors. I seek to play more, and ultimately, forgive myself and others.
My choices are intentional, well-thought-out, and in service of the journey, but they are also misguided and stubborn at times. Everything that has happened to me, for me, and by me together shape a state of being that is continually changing and always striving for balance given any moment’s context. It is shaped by awareness (what my senses are aware of and what my current mind’s perception is focused on); emotions (how I personally feel about any given situation); hormonal regulation (hormones in flux greatly affect an emotional state); learned patterned behaviors (instincts and habits), and the immediate external environment (what’s going on around me and the level of interaction). This means that me—and every other living being that has ever lived—has one way of seeing the world that can never be fully understood, experienced, or replicated by another. Personally I find that fascinating, because it means everyone has something to offer and everyone has a story to be told.
The additional benefit for realizing the constant flux of personality dynamics and imperfections in all life allows for a radical acceptance and compassion for others. We are all making it up as we go and trying to do the best we can with the knowledge, wisdom, and circumstances available to us at any given point in time.
My story’s details have been unique to me, and they’ve shaped who I have become today. From shame and guilt to anger, sadness, and grief to gratitude, love, and acceptance, all of these moments on and off the page have given me a deep understanding of why I have made certain choices, and patience for those behaviors that I continue to work through that no longer serve me. Through a humble acceptance, desire to grow, and a passion for this new-found life, at the end of the day, I stay true to my authentic experience and recognize it’s truly enough.
Taking a Moment to Pause and Reflect on the Good
While I’ve described the most challenging aspects of my life so far as they related to my healing journey, I find it necessary to take a moment to celebrate all the love I have been fortunate to receive. I have had so many precious moments spent with friends along the years, have been deeply loved by some members of my family, been in love, and have had precious moments of creativity, silliness, and play. While this narrative is framed as the painful evolution of my growth, I would be remiss to discount the wonderful parts of my youth that have also made me who I am today. I am privileged in many ways, and I am grateful for the opportunities and love I have received over the years.
The Journey From Here
I am an imperfect human. I make no attempt at being the authoritative source on any topic. I am merely enthusiastic about the power of perspective. And mine, like yours, is unique. My experiences have shaped me, for better or for worse. I hold no regrets. I’d make each choice again if it brought me to the creature I am, here at this moment. I’ve experienced unspeakable pain. I’ve lived through trauma. I’ve grown from suffering. I’ve had privilege. I’ve earned rewards. I’ve served both selfishly and selflessly. I’ve laughed. I’ve cried. I’ve reacted poorly. I’ve responded compassionately. My story may be unique, but it is also relatable.
I realized the way I can best serve is to help people heal themselves as a first step, and then maybe some of those people will feel empowered to contribute to the collective healing of the planet and society as we know it. If I could help by sharing my story where I learned my own individual pathways and tools for healing, I could meet others where they are at with an open heart, open mind, and a personal opportunity to continue my own forever journey of healing, growing, and learning.
To those that are suffering: whether you have a hereditary illness, are suffering from migraines or indigestion, live with unexplained fatigue, or anything in-between or beyond—I hope you can find the help you need. I believe this work has the power to ease your symptoms or completely eliminate them, bring peace and joy, and remind you that you are a beautiful, imperfect animal worthy of love.
My expertise and experience come from a background in communications education and work, where I eventually found the practice of biomimicry as I mentioned before, which is the idea that by looking to nature’s time-tested strategies to adapt to the context of the planet we live on and within, we can learn how to better solve design problems on local and global scales. I’ve immersed myself in practitioner training of Mindbody Syndrome (also known as psychophysiological disorder) and Internal Family Systems (IFS), emotional reprocessing, integrated nutrition, and holistic health. This has all helped me interpret the world around me, attune to my own programmed behaviors, and help others find the same level of awareness through education and applied practice.
To learn from and be so deeply connected with the natural world is to be fully alive. It's moments like these that I am humbled, and at the same time, certain of my worthiness. I choose to live a life driven by compassionate action. The way I can best serve in this way is through education and advocacy for the issues, while also cherishing the experiences of this world that I aim to preserve.
My mission is to spread the practice of biomimicry, both the science of translating biological strategies into the way people design everything (so that they know how to create conditions conducive to life) and the collective (re)connection to nature's wonder and awe. But for me it also goes further than this, to look not only at the academic sense of “biological life” but to extend beyond to all nature—embracing Indigenous wisdom in seeing everything as energy, everything as alive. It’s all deeply interconnected and relevant as we learn to return to our home in the Animal Kingdom. If this sounds heady, too philosophical, and lacking in scientific scrutiny, please find an open-mind as I can assure you an authentic exploration of both the academic and spiritual is possible.
For a long time, and for many still today, nature has not been seen as profitable other than in the form of a warehouse of goods to be mined, used, and destructed, ultimately sold for less valuable resources than the functions they evolved to serve and thrive, alive, in their natural ecosystems. The biological strategies organisms embody, and the health benefits of merely being connected to nature, hold the true value. The organisms alive today, big and small, are our mentors. And they must be protected, because we have so much more to learn from them and the systems they contribute to.
Immersing myself in nature has allowed me to reinvigorate my love for these habitats I seek to learn from, preserve, and share this wisdom with others. We are deeply interconnected to all of life. To realize this and embody its truth in our everyday living is empowering and intentional. It's about coming home, realizing that because we are here, alive, we are enough. Rooted in this worthiness, we then can realize we make a difference to end our suffering. And then it's a choice for each individual how they want to design their own life.
There's a lot of struggle in the world today, and yet, there is still a lot of hope. May we all find our piece of solace and find a way to honor life's beautiful, theatrical moments—and to embrace healing and wholeness along the way. Thank you for your time in reading this story. It truly means the world to me that you are here and open to learn, grow, and explore these concepts.
If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or a crisis, please reach out immediately to the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741. These services are free and confidential.
